Shortlist emerges for Ant-Man director's chair

Who will be taking Edgar Wright's place in the Ant-Man director's chair? Here's the apparent Marvel shortlist...

To outsiders, there are now warning sirens going off all around Marvel's planned Ant-Man movie. It's no secret that Edgar Wright had been working on it for the best part of a decade (having co-written the screenplay and been attached to direct for some time), and his departure - apparently over script rewrites that he neither wanted or liked - saw him walk away last week.

Marvel, however, remains undeterred, and has been insistent that the planned July 2015 release date still stands. That means production needs to get going in the next couple of months, and someone has to pick up a project that's basically been crafted by Edgar Wright for a long, long time.

So who is on the list of potential replacements for Wright? Well, if a new story over at The Hollywood Reporter is to be believed, then Marvel's choices are maintaining a comedy tone.

The names being mentioned are Rawson Marshall Thurber (Dodgeball, We're The Millers), Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland, Gangster Squad) and Adam McKay (Anchorman). Of those, McKay has form with comic book movies in the past, having reportedly been working on an adaptation of Garth Ennis' The Boys at the start of the decade (although the project never came to fruition).

Marvel, as always, is staying quiet until it has something official to announce. If that Ant-Man release date is to stand, expect that announcement to come sooner rather than later....